Illiterate
by SilverLining554
Summary: And he's so ilitirite. - Gold/Crystal (Modern Day)


And he's so ilitirite. - Gold/Crystal

* * *

 **Illiterate**

"This is wrong."

Gold groans and erases the word on his paper for the fifth time that afternoon. This is what he gets for winding up in study hall with Crystal. An hour of lecturing and criticism, whether it be on his (nonexistent) trigonometry skills, sloppy posture, or worst of all, his spelling and grammar. But it was either this or detention and Gold's sitting on thin ice with his parent as it is. He doesn't need them knowing he got into a fight...again. So study hall is pretty much a gift from Heaven compared to the parent's note that would go home if he chose to serve a detention.

So if Study hall's a gift from Heaven, does that make Crystal an angel? Or a little demon? Because Gold's thinking the latter's more accurate at the moment.

"That's not even close," Crystal says in an authoritative tone. She thinks because she's been sent to look after Gold that that makes her some kind of 'special student teacher' or whatever bullshit goes into her prissy mind. Gold thinks it's annoying. If he was going to be spending his entire afternoon with his best friend _and_ one of the cutest girls at his school, then why did it have to be like this?

Gold slumps over and slams his forehead down on his crossed arms. He's so done with this. Like Crystal says very often, he _can't even._ "Fix it for me," he mumbles.

"Then how will you _learn_?" That's the thing about Crys'. She'll never let him cheat or give him answers, ever. She honestly believes that if she leaves Gold to do some "thinking" that he'll get it himself and actually learn something for once. What she doesn't know is that all the times she's left him to do that thinking, he's gone to his second best friend for homework help. Also known as Google.

Suddenly, she leans in real close, so close that Gold can smell her perfume. It's some flowery mix that threatens to give him a headache, but instead it comes off rather...pleasant. Like a field of daises and roses.

Gold peeks his head up, his cheeks warming against his folded arms. Her perfume isn't all too strong. She smells pretty good.

"Look at this Gold. You're supposed to be spelling 'illiterate', not _'il-i-teer-it'._ " Crystal snorts, snapping him out of his daze. "Ironically."

Gold sits up now and stares at the girl beside him with a bit of frustration. Any thoughts of her and being "pleasant" melt away and he straightens up. He stands taller than her at 5 foot 11, nearly reaching 6 feet while she's a more petite 5 foot 6. He glares down at her. It's not a cold, unfamiliar look, but more of one of friendly accusation.

(Wait, do those two words even go together? Doesn't Crystal call that a foxy-moron or something?)

Gold sneers slightly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Crystal snickers and stares up at him. Her clear, blue eyes lock onto his gold ones and hold him there. He feels like he's falling into a sea of pure crystal with the water so deep that he can't swim up to shore.

He's drowning in her beautiful eyes, but he's sure as hell still breathing.

The small quirk of her lips makes his heart race. "I just think it's kind of funny. You can't spell 'illiterate'."

"Shut up," Gold snaps. He knows what she's insinuating - that he himself is illiterate. He looks at his paper with some newfound concentration. He'll prove to her that he can too spell. He picks his pencil up and begins to write.

Both Gold and Crystal watch in silence as his hand moves to scrawl the word out.

 _Ilitarite._

Crystal laughs. "It's still wrong! Jeez, Gold. And you're a junior in high school, too."

Gold turns to her sharply. "Sorry we can't all be perfect like you." Before he even finishes his sentence he knows that it's unnecessarily rude. _Shit._ Gold inwardly cringes and hopes she won't completely flip out on him or go all "Crystal Kong".

(Crystal Kong, as he knows from experience, is very scary.)

Instead of slapping him upside the head, Crystal just grins at him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she coos teasingly. When he grunts in response she giggles.

Gold's eyes go wide when his heart thumps. Her giggle is such a light, cute sound that reverberates throughout his entire brain repeatedly like a Chatot's Round and makes him feel weak in his gut.

Oh, Arceus. He's not falling for _Crystal_ is he?

"Can you just tell me how to spell the damn word?" Gold asks in exasperation. He decides to ignore his feelings. For now.

"Okay," Crystal murmurs. "Ready?"

Gold smiles; finally, she's given in. He knew she would eventually give up. He was a hopeless case when it came to his studies. And those aren't Gold's words: they're his teachers'. He prepares his mechanical pencil and hovers the lead above the spot next to his last word in anticipation.

"I," Crystal says.

Gold writes. _I_

"L, L, I..."

Gold still writes. _Illi_

"...K."

Gold pauses. With apprehension he asks, "...K?"

"Yeah," Crystal says. "K."

Gold thinks this is weird, but then again there are words like _colonel_ that have weird spellings and different pronunciations. Gold had been saying "Co-lo-nel" instead of "Ker-nel" for years in all honesty.

So he writes the "K". _Illik_

"Then, E. And Y, E, W."

Quite dumbly, Gold copies down the rest of the word without realizing what it could possibly sound out to. He blinks and stares down at his new word. _Illikeyew._

 _Illikeyew?_

"Illy-kew?" he asks. "I think you spelled it wrong, Crys'. _Way_ wrong." He grins smugly. "Ha, see - I'm not the only one who can't spell!"

Crystal gives him a look he can't quite read. He swears he sees her cheeks turn pink and she turns her head slightly to face away from him. Her pink, pink lips slowly stretch to form a smile again. She laughs that Chatot-laugh of hers, tittering quietly.

Gold tilts his head to the side in confusion. What's her deal all of a sudden?

"You're right, Gold," she whispers. "You and I are both so illiterate."


End file.
